When building your shack or installing radios in a vehicle remember that occasionally you may want to computer program the radios later. While most scanners these days are programmed from the front panel not all radios are. Remote head radios often require access to the radio itself for programming, this might be buried someplace out of sight.
Depending on how you mount your radios and how often you plan on programming them by computer you might want to pre-plan this and provide easier access for the programming cable.
Is the radio itself in the trunk or otherwise less accessible? Consider running an appropriate cable to an accessible place so you can easily get to it with your laptop.
Is the radio built into a console in the shack? Run a cable under the table or thru the panels or perhaps hanging from the back of the rack.
Most of my radios are front panel programmable so I usually don't have a problem. I do have a couple however, including a remote-head Whistler WS1095 that do not have front panel access for programming. The radio is mounted behind in the cabinet so I ran a USB cable from the radio shelf unit to the front of the radio rack so I can just plug it into the USB port of the computer.
Some radios won't allow such niceties however. For whatever reason some ham rigs program thru the speaker jack. If you have a programming cable plugged in then the radio cannot be heard. On one such radio I was using a remote speaker so I used a 3-wire audio extension cable. I could unplug the speaker and connect the programming cable into the extension cable. This allowed me to program the radio from the comfortable cabin of the SUV instead of leaning in to the cargo area.
I took things a little farther in my home shack. I ran a USB extension cable from the computer itself to the rack so I could plug in the programming cable for whatever radio I was working on. I have a mixture of various type radios but they all use USB, either with a serial adapter, a RS or Uniden programming cable or some specialty cable. I just plug it into the USB extension that is easily accessible on my rack instead of crawling around in the floor trying to plug it into the back of the computer.
I did the same thing for mic jacks and a couple other cables for accessories or radios. Keeping it neat but accessible makes for a lot less stress when you want to connect devices. Think about putting a USB hub someplace easily accessible if you have several devices needing access.
The less you have to move things the less problems you are going to have down the road. You can spend more time operating the radios than operating on them.
Depending on how you mount your radios and how often you plan on programming them by computer you might want to pre-plan this and provide easier access for the programming cable.
Is the radio itself in the trunk or otherwise less accessible? Consider running an appropriate cable to an accessible place so you can easily get to it with your laptop.
Is the radio built into a console in the shack? Run a cable under the table or thru the panels or perhaps hanging from the back of the rack.
Most of my radios are front panel programmable so I usually don't have a problem. I do have a couple however, including a remote-head Whistler WS1095 that do not have front panel access for programming. The radio is mounted behind in the cabinet so I ran a USB cable from the radio shelf unit to the front of the radio rack so I can just plug it into the USB port of the computer.
Some radios won't allow such niceties however. For whatever reason some ham rigs program thru the speaker jack. If you have a programming cable plugged in then the radio cannot be heard. On one such radio I was using a remote speaker so I used a 3-wire audio extension cable. I could unplug the speaker and connect the programming cable into the extension cable. This allowed me to program the radio from the comfortable cabin of the SUV instead of leaning in to the cargo area.
I took things a little farther in my home shack. I ran a USB extension cable from the computer itself to the rack so I could plug in the programming cable for whatever radio I was working on. I have a mixture of various type radios but they all use USB, either with a serial adapter, a RS or Uniden programming cable or some specialty cable. I just plug it into the USB extension that is easily accessible on my rack instead of crawling around in the floor trying to plug it into the back of the computer.
I did the same thing for mic jacks and a couple other cables for accessories or radios. Keeping it neat but accessible makes for a lot less stress when you want to connect devices. Think about putting a USB hub someplace easily accessible if you have several devices needing access.
The less you have to move things the less problems you are going to have down the road. You can spend more time operating the radios than operating on them.
